The Second Son
by DreamingCynic
Summary: In the gates of the moon, Alayne Stone leads a regimented half-life of sycophantism, lies and arbor gold. But her dreams belong to a girl she used to be, running alongside a wolf long dead.
1. Longing

_**Longing**_

Being Alayne was tiresome. The Lord Paramount had announced that whilst Harry and Alayne were to be married, Alayne was far too young to bear child, and the marriage was to be stalled until her seventeenth nameday. In the meantime she played her days as a sycophant for Petyr Baelish and the Lords of the Vale, taking upmost care to present herself as a humble, religious, and most of all, grateful bastard. The nights were often occupied by Sweetrobin, who she played step-sister, nursemaid and mother to, when in truth she was his cousin. At the end of her days she would fall into bed and dream.

Oft she would awake to the monotony of being Alayne from terrible nightmares, dreams of her kin, and their fates, or her marriage bed, and what awaited her inside of it. But other mornings she would wake from dreams of her wolf, Lady.

Whilst she enjoyed these dreams, in the sliver of the morning when she could permit herself to not be Alayne, she would feel lost, cold and abandoned. Although she relished running with Lady, something was she couldn't shake the thought that something was intrinsically incorrect. The dreams themselves were idyllic and all too quickly forgotten, but carried an air of wrongness. It was like she was looking through the wrong eyes and all this time Lady was trying to lead her to something, or encourage her to do something important, but she couldn't figure out what it was.

After a particularly frustrating incident that left porridge stuck in her hair, Alayne decided to give in to Myanda Royce's demands to share her bed, motivated by a desire to avoid nightmares and enjoy female company. Most importantly of all, if she was in Randa's bed, Sweetrobin would hardly be able to crawl into her bed and paw at her bosom.

When she entered Randa's boudoir, she found the occupant of the room, all plump bosom and curls of brown. Surprisingly, Mya Stone, Randa's closest confidant was nowhere to be seen. Alayne suspected that Randa had ulterior motives in this new friendship, but none-the-less, enjoyed the spirited woman's company and gossip as a reprieve from her duties.

"Finally, I have the Lord Paramount's dearest daughter. Welcome to my humble chambers." Alayne could hardly call Randa's quarters humble. The stone walls were decorated with pleasant tapestries depicting red blossoming flowers. The motif even continued to the bed. Alayne was surprised that a woman of Randa's maturity still had girlish dolls on her bed.

"I am most glad I have come. I needed someone to cheer me up. Where is Mya?"

"One of the mules is poorly, I suspect Mya will bed down in the stables tonight. She'll probably enjoy their company better than ours, she's half mule herself," she snorted. "What has brought your mood so low Alayne?"

Alayne shrugged "Poor Sweetrobin ails."

"The old illness?" Randa did her best to look concerned for the sickly boy.

"The very same," Alayne nodded, slipping under the covers.

"Your Father places you under a lot of stress. I hope your slumber has not been too affected?"

"I have nightmares often." Alayne admitted, "But I also have frustrating dreams where the things I want to happen will not occur. It feels as if my own dreams conspire against me."

"I know that feeling. As a child I used to get awful night terrors, but worst of all, I couldn't scream, I knew that if I were to scream, all would be right. But I couldn't, not matter how hard I tried. I grew out of those terrible things."

"The frustrating thing is that it's not my nightmares. It is dreams where I want things to happen to me and I can't seem to trigger what I want to occur to me." Alayne pouted too sourly and Randa burst into laughter, leaping to only one conclusion.

"Oh ho ho Alayne, what do you want to happen in your dreams so badly? Let me guess. A rendezvous with a men hmm? Our mutual friend Harry? Or is it another man who you knew in Gulltown? Oh it must be true, your face is as red as a strawberry!"

Alayne shook her head. It was false that her dreams were about men, but she couldn't deny that her face was glowing red.

Randa continued with her teasing, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "In your dreams, does he caress you gently? Does he cup your face, stroke your lips? Or does he just put his hand in dirty places? A stag on the former you septa."

Alayne shrieked and hit her bedfellow with her pillow, her exhaustion forgotten. "The septas would call you a harlot!"

"They would be in the right you know. I am."

Alayne fancied that she could hear barking laughter in her ear, but Alayne could have never met the owner of that harsh laugh.

"And they say bastard's blood runs hot," continued Randa's teasing "Since I'm in a betting mood tonight, I bet you've never been kissed."

"I have been kissed," replied Alayne with icy indignation.

"Our Lord Protector doesn't count."

Alayne stilled in fear, scared that Randa or another had witnessed what occurred in the privacy of the Lord Paramount's solar, but Randa continued in a silly singsong voice. "A kiss on the lips, a lover's kiss."

Alyane knew then she was referring to the dutiful pecks she would place on Petyr's cheek in the private eye.

"Well I have been kissed. Once. Like that." Alayne spluttered.

"Pray tell my dear" Randa's eyes glinted, and Alayne knew she must proceed with caution, but also flinched and blushed, glancing around the curtains of the featherbed, anywhere but her acquaintances predatory eyes.

"It was just a rushed kiss," she whispered. "But he was a man, much older than I. I was only on the cusp of womanhood. He was tall. Strong. Not handsome at all. He was a man unused to kindness, both in others and in himself. He scared everyone, and I was scared of him too. But he stole it. The kiss I mean. He pressed his lips to mine and opened his slightly. There was a touch of wetness then he nipped my bottom lip. Not ungently. I knew he would never hurt me" She met her bedmate's eyes. "I still don't know what to make of it. It makes me feel funny."

"That sounds absolutely horrid" Randa wrinkled her upturned nose. "He shouldn't have bothered, you shouldn't even count it."

Alayne thought of the other kisses she had endured and wished that she could just not count those kisses either.

"I liked it though." Sansa insisted, clasping her hands together as she said it, her face burning.

"Seven heavens above, you might yet become as bad as I!" Randa chuckled "Do you touch yourself thinking of it?"

"T-touch myself?"

"Touch yourself, frig yourself, have a good old wank?"

"I have to preserve my maidenhead," Alayne knew that her virtue must not be compromised in anyway, so important it was to Petyr's plans.

"Don't you know how a woman takes her pleasure?" Randa laughed. "Such an innocent, your channel is not where you make your pleasure you silly goose."

Alayne said nothing in response.

"I bet your septahouse in Gulltown didn't teach you this," Randa sniggered as she threw back the coverlet. "Come on Bastard, I'll teach you your own anatomy, sit at my feet."

Alayne obliged her and Randa hitched up her nightclothes to around her hips, exposing short plump legs with a thin smattering of dark hairs. She wasn't wearing any smallclothes, and when her legs parted, a thatch of curls dimmer than those on her head was revealed. Silently Alayne panicked. If Randa willed her to reciprocate, she would reveal that on her womanhood, she was still another girl.

Neverless, oblivious to Alayne's perturbation or mistaking it for religious horror, Randa shifted up on her pillows and let the legs fall to either side. Her nether lips could be seen beneath the overhang of hair, two little dark pink wrinkled lips defiantly jutting out of her seam.

She shifted on her pillows again to sit more upright, taking a hand and extending two fingers in a 'v' shape. She engaged those fingers in parting her lips. "Do you see this junction here bastard? The cleft betwixt my folds?" Her fingers pressed gently and the folds of flesh exposed a tiny hooded sphere of flesh. "This is your own intimate pearl, where you must touch yourself in order to find release." Alayne did not voice the fact that the sphere of flesh was a poor imitation of a pearl.

"What does a release feel like?" Alayne blurted.

"Like your muff is hiccupping. It's a pleasant enough sensation. Sometimes the sensation travels to your toes, down through your legs. When you think of your old man's kiss, your pearl will stiffen and your lips fill with blood too, so they feel heavier and thicker. Your tummy may feel funny. You'll get all moist and wet. That'll be your channel preparing itself for a cock. You see my entrance there?"

Alayne nodded.

"Your entrance will have a veil, but mine doesn't anymore. Good riddance! When you lose your maidenhead to dearest Harry, your veil will be punctured by his cock. There may be some blood, but allow him to kiss and fondle you and your body will allow him access, to receive him without pain. You might even take pleasure in your deflowering."

She thought of Tyrion then. She found it unlikely that she could have ever found pleasure in her own wedding bed.

 _But how could I ever have such carnal knowledge of Tyrion Lannister? I've only ever heard tales of his deformities._

Randa pulled the bed covers back around her and Alayne subserviently snuggled down into the featherbed, exhaustion returning to her. "If you breath word of this to Mya, I'll take vengeance, Bastard," Randa teased. "When you sleep tonight, do you know exactly what you're going to start? Hrm?" She had that soft teasing voice on again, that kind of sickly sweet voice best suited to patronisation.

Alayne couldn't quite answer with the truth, so she decided to answer with silence, clutching one of Randa's childhood dolls to her chest and fake sleep until it became truth.

She ran with Lady through a field of grass, the colour of autumn yellow. The air was still with the scent of summer, her hair on fire with light. She had never been a good runner like a little girl she had once known, who could run like a beast possessed when the whim took her. Now and then, the silks of her summer dresses tripped her up, but each time she managed to regain her balance before she toppled over. Eventually even Lady became frustrated and with a snarl, tore the bottom of her dress off, baring Sansa to her knees.

"Oh Lady, you naughty girl!" she shrieked, but her heart was not in it. It was much easier to run without tripping up without it. Throwing proprietary to the wind, she ripped her hairpins out to let her hair down, permitting her tresses to stream out behind her, unbrushed. She kicked her silly silk slippers off and began to run with speed and bare feet. Lady howled in jubilation, and in response she screamed and whooped, jumping and twirling the ruined silk of her dress around and around, acting quite the wildling.

She took far more delight than a lady should in ruining her attire. They were a gift from Cersei after all. _If only I could tear Cersei up so easily_.

Then in the distance she spied a small hillock, a tree perched on the very top. She ran towards it, enjoying the muscle burn of her thighs and the feel of the earth beneath her feet. Lady zoomed around her, sprinting loops and barking her encouragement. Running up the hill proved very difficult, but she made it without stopping, and plopped herself down between the giant roots of the tree.

Lady laid by her side, and she stroked her for such a long time Lady has stopped panting. Lady was only a fraction of the size she should be, still puppy-fat with large, loving amber eyes. She kissed her on her nose and then buried her own nose into Lady's crown. She took breaths there, inhaling Lady's sweet beastly scent, and then, with trepidation, reached out and _bridges_.

She enters Lady, and she tastes death.

She feels the chill of steel through her neck and the cruel reduction of old age, the blaze of fire and the purge of plague. At the same time a childbed fever burns her up from the inside, loin first. A dagger lunges into her tummy and digs upwards, stirring up her guts as the same dagger slashes open her throat. She's raped a million times to a million deaths by a million men. She tries to breath, but her throat closes and her desperate screams turn into wheezes. The rains of Castamere screech as arrows thud into her chest.

She dies thirsty.

She dies hungry.

She dies shitting.

She feels the swell of a thousand sorrows and hurls herself off ledges and cliffs, battlements and precipices. She spends months sowing stones into her gowns, and throws herself into rivers, lakes and seas. Her last breath bubbles before her own eyes and floats to a surface she'll never see again.

Her sinuses swarm with maggots, her abdomen bloats with stinking gas. Her eyes are taken by crows, and her flesh reserved for vultures. Insects lay their eggs in the flesh that was once her pretty teats and her body swarms with unwelcome life. The scavengers find her, bears and foxes worry at her bloated limbs. Her bones are scattered and picked dry.

Winter comes.

Bastard born Alayne is thwarted, and Sansa Stark reigns.

Winter is a time for wolves.

* * *

She awoke to a sickmaid cooling her brow with a wet cloth, under the instruction of maester Colemon. Littlefinger was called for at once. Whilst waiting for her faux father, she sipped a little bit of thin beef consume and made sense of what had occurred whilst she was dreaming. They had not moved her from the room, and had set up sickbed in Randa's own featherbed upon discovering her in the morning. The sheets had been changed and Randa's personal effects removed from the room. She is told how her body had gone as stiff as a board, and that Randa's doll had been wrenched from her arms by three maids. Her fever had been blatant, and in her sleep she had been spooned tonics for strength, and leached. She has been confined for nine days.

Randa burst into the room first, fussing over her and even sobbing a little. Sansa was touched by such a display of genuine relief and said a few kind words, even jesting that Randa's gossip was far too powerful for a maid like her.

From Randa she learns both Mya and Randa had visited her in the sickbed and prayed for her in the sept. Harry had avoided the sickbed, but had made a show of praying for her. Sweetrobin had been extremely troubled by her absence, and blamed his naughtiness with the porridge for her illness.

Littlefinger by all accounts has very distressed by the thought of losing his pretty daughter. Randa gossiped that Littlefinger had presented himself at breakfasts with bags under his eyes and was prone to spending far more time alone in his solar than ever before.

Sansa knew better, that it was distress from the thought of a plot being thwarted by an unanticipated threat, of a lack of control. It was small consolation that the thought of losing her as a pawn was enough for Littlefinger to lose sleep.

When he came to visit her, he clung to her fingers with a sort of clinging desperation, like a drowning sailor clinging to shipwreck. In the view of the maids he kissed her forehead, but when he dismissed them to converse in private, he kissed her full on the mouth. He had kissed her long on the mouth before but never had he pushed her lips apart and forced his tongue to lick along her clenched teeth.

How sweet it would be to open those teeth to chomp down on that lecherous tongue. But she endured the flood of mint that entered her mouth, weak hands flying to Littlefinger's shoulders.

"My Lord," she weakly murmured, feeling faint and cursing her weakness. "I need to recuperate."

She met his eyes then and sung a pretty song. "You must not catch my illness Petyr. I'm relying on you." She forced a silly weak smile onto her face until she thought that she looked as if she were glowing with happiness. "I'm happy to see you," she lied.

His eyes lit up and he stroked her hair as if he were stroking a kitten. "I've been neglecting you. Has the care of Sweetrobin been too strenuous?"

She shook her head from side to side. "I am capable of what you judge me capable." She forced her hands to reach out hers and grasp his. "These things are out of our control. Do not allow this blame to fall upon yourself." She steeled herself and lifted one of his hands, ghosting a kiss over his knuckles. "I know what is at stake. I am safe here. I know who I have to thank for that."

 _I am only as safe here you will me to be. But you are not noble enough to save me from yourself._

She continued, gazing deeply into his green eyes before continuing to turn her head into the pillow. "I must look appalling."

 _Better he think me vain, he certainly is._

"I do not wish you to see me like this."

 _Better he think me attracted to him._

"Return to your work, to our survival. Let me return to recovery. I will recover stronger for you, and your duties."

 _Better he think me striving for him, to see me as a willing accomplice._

"That you will," he murmurs into her cheek, kissing her cheek for a moment too long before he leaves her room.

She made sure to convalesce for more than a sennight, to allow her to chastise Littlefinger for visiting her, bidding him to work for her survival with a teasing smile.

But after her convalescence came to an end and she returned to her duties she came to realise that this encouragement was a misstep on her part. Although, judging by his lust upon her awakening, her additional mummery was unlikely to have encouraged him to the excess the thought of losing her had. Neverless, Alayne was called to her Father's solar more oft than she had ever before.

His attentions had intensified and more often than not, she found herself perched on his lap. His hands would cling like weed, reaching both upward to cup her teats and downward to trace her mound through her skirts. His kisses became wet and wetter. It became harder to protest against him, to stall.

He began to give her beautiful dresses, women's dresses, under the pretence of entrancing Harry. She knew better. Often the dresses would be far too low cut, or the fabric too sheer. Some of the dresses had exotic slits up the side to display the wearer's legs, or would be so tight the cleft of her buttocks could be seen through the skirt.

She resisted, installing modesty panelling when the dress exposed too much bosom. When the fit of the skirt was scandalously tight, she would slit the front and install layering of petticoats to flare the shape of the dress. Much the same with the dresses with slits, where she installed skirts that flash with colour where her legs should be. She had less use for the sheer dresses, but employed them for layering in the cold winter weather, shifts and camisoles to be used under modest dresses.

When Littlefinger finally does ask her why she alters his gifts so, palming her left breast through a bodice so thick she can hardly feel his small hands, she softly murmurs that it was her mother's winter style, and that she thought that would please him the best.

He makes a soft, slimy noise of contentment and Sansa has to restrain herself from retching.

As the winter deepened with his ardour, she begins to swaddle herself in fabrics, to resist both his advances and the penetrating cold. But instead of feeling safe in her swaddling layers, she is now a present to be unwrapped, a knot of rich fabrics. With every barrier, his anticipation is heightened. He is a man who enjoys these games.

In the day she wears Alayne like a glove. But in the quiet of the night, she discards Alayne like a dragonfly discarding its cocoon. Littlefinger plays and positions her like a porcelain doll, but she fancies herself the steel of a dagger. Her true Father told her that playing with knives was dangerous folly.

She begins a habit of scheming in the hour of the wolf. Thus, the assembled cast of Littlefinger's troupe at the gates of the moon.

Sweetrobin first. Her greatest ally. A child possessing eight namedays. Prone to fits, and medicated with sweetsleep mixed into milk. Easy to manipulate with tall tales of valour and courage, just as she was. He seeks a mother and only finds Alayne. No true power.

Lothor Brune. A knight owning much to Littlefinger, including his elevation in social status, and most-like gold. He takes a fancy in Mya Stone. If she were to encourage Mya to consider Lothor, could she steal the burly knight? Or is Lothor owned by Littlefinger through-and-through? He is a gamble that she is unlike to win despite his amiability.

Corbrey is riskier. Petyr has promises, boys and gold to offer. There is only one thing that she thinks that a man like him could be tempted by. There is a breed of second son that can be motivated by the possessions of the elder. But she is unable to legitimately make that offer, here the scales are tilted in Littlefinger's favour.

Lady Waynewood is a mystery. She seeks to make alliance with Littlefinger through the marriage of her ward. Alayne is bastard born, but is also the inheritor of the Riverlands if legitimised. Does she seek to expand Harry's estate? Or is she motivated by the fact that Littlefinger must provide an undisclosed dowry for Alayne? It must take quite an amount to overlook Alayne's low status. Unreliable.

Considering the roster of Royces, Randa is a good and jolly friend, but has little power over her Lord Father. Nestor Royce has proved himself incalculable, but could be swayed by a good marriage to Randa. Again. Unreliable. Their distant cousin Yohn supported Robb in the war. However, that war is lost now, the King in the North long dead, his bones scattered. In addition, she is a woman, and he an older man, set in his ways. Would he obey her order, or would she find herself in yet another cage? If he does possess the forces to incapacitate Littlefinger in a coup, could he turn on her? She observes him most closely to ascertain if he could be an ally.

But for all her analysis, her weaving and planning oft feels for naught. She understands the theoretical concept of playerhood, but lacks the opening, the weak thread to be picked at. There are miserable plays that she kicks herself for missing, damning her passivity.

One night, she bumps into Yohn Royce unattended and makes smalltalk. She very nearly began to disclose who she really was, heart fluttering like a bat.

 _Didn't name you for your capacity to fly. Doubt even you'd be pretty after a fall from the moondoor_ rasps in her ear.

She makes her excuses and leaves for her chambers. Slowly and carefully, she closed her door, barring it from the inside. She lit three candles around her chambers, then bathed her face. She let her hair down then brushed one hundred times. She applied a soft citrus lavender oil to her roots, and examined for tell-tale auburn hairs.

She stood up.

Then she flung herself face-first onto her bed and screamed into her pillow. The pillow absorbed her cries into sad little muffled noises. She wept a little until she ceased. This was common routine, and often made her feel a little better about her circumstances when in fact she hadn't done anything to change her fate.

She puffed out her cheeks and looked up to her headboard, too angry to sleep.

And then her hand was pressed to the junction of her legs.

Had she landed in this position? She hadn't placed her hand there on purpose. Still. Her hand was splayed palm down, the knuckle of her third finger pressed to the very beginning of her seam.

Septa Mordane had once stuffily informed her not to touch herself there, lest her virtue be compromised. But Septa Mordane was long dead and Randa had informed her that a woman's seat of pleasure wouldn't affect the physical reality of her maidenhead.

She had always presumed that the pleasure of being bedded would be inside her, accessible only with the aid of her husband. The fact that the seat of her pleasure laid on her exterior, and that she had not known it all this time was a surprise.

Harry and Lady Waynewood wanted her maidenhead true, but pleasuring herself needn't cause her maidenhood's rupture. She considered for a moment that Harry may dislike her entering the marriage bed with such carnal knowledge, but she doubted Harry would kick up a fuss. He had obviously figured out how to achieve such a release whilst fathering his bastards.

In contempt of them all, she rolled her hips against her hand and that central finger. There was something there, some spark of feeling, but it was dull. She had swaddled herself in too many skirts.

She checked to make sure that she had indeed barred the door, then proceeded to pull up her skirts and cast off her small clothes, lying back down in the same position. She could feel the pelt of her womanhood against her hand.

It was almost perverse, the knowledge that down there, she was definitely still auburn Sansa Stark. She repeated the motion of her hips once, twice, three times until she felt the start of something.

She turned around and checked the door and room again, aware that if anyone were to come in, they would see her pale white bottom bobbing up and down. _It would be very hard to explain my way out of that._

Nobody is there, and she doesn't stop. She uses her knees to lift her bottom up higher and flips over her hand so that her fingers can scramble for the pearl Randa told her about. The first few moments of searching do not bear fruit, but she enjoys the friction. Finally growing frustrated with half-senses she pushed her other hand down to part her lips and finds the elusive pearl.

The first touch makes her body quiver and her hands spasm. She loses her place and has to fumble to find her nub again. Before she does so, she reaches down further and caresses the entrance to her opening, the place where a man would find his own alien pleasure, within her.

For a moment she thinks of Tyrion's ugly purple manhood.

 _No. I will not think of that here. I will not._

Then she thinks of how likely she elicits the same response in Littlefinger when she allows him to fondle her over clothes. He never raised as much as his little finger during her captivity in the red keep, but she knows his little finger definitely raises for her now in the gates of the moon.

 _That too. Begone._

This is her bedchamber, and this is her featherbed. Here she can dream her wolf dreams and fantasise and fetishize the fantasy of a man loving her for who she is. No claim. No beauty maybe. Certainly not her likeness to another. Her frustration mounted and her temper flared and she touched herself with incensed abandon.

She smells the smoke and salt on the air. She thinks about the pressure a large man has and could exert on her body. She smells him, his clean smells of leather, lye soap and earnest sweat. Her fingers cramp. She remembers the stenches of battle and booze and vomit. Her fingers manipulate harder. The pressure of a dagger is imagined at her neck, and then, tracing downwards, betwixt the valleys of her breasts. She recalls a prayer for mercy. And then there is a wetness that is not blood.

 _There is a wetness._

Her fingers work as fast as she can make them. She finds that terror can subside and collapse, and at the foundations, hidden, other sensations can be found.

She recalls a kiss and she is furious, her fingers cruel but not enough to pull her into the wanton pulsings Margery's cousins tittered about and Myanda described so crudely.

With a moan she pulls her dress up over her head and sits up naked, kneeling as if she were at prayer, but splaying her legs open. She finds a substitute for her fingers in her pillow, dragging herself up and down the cushion.

The friction is delicious but not enough as she had anticipated until she rearranged herself, lining the rough cording of the edging of the pillow against her bud. She slid back and forth, one hand holding the pillow in position, the other palming her breast with a hand too small. The sensation she had laboured to build was growing into something bigger, a coil tightening in the bowl of her tummy, causing her body to sweat and her breath to come in little laboured pants.

She yearns for the second son of house Clegane.

Then she cracks into light and opens to the blindness. She forgets to breath. She forgets everything.

The cages shatters around her.

Of all the deaths she has known, this is the sweetest.

* * *

She returns to Alayne in the morn, but instead of attending Sweetrobin, Littlefinger calls her to observe how he welcomes orders of the faith to the keep.

She orders the servants to make preparations for this order, to give these men a watered down pale ale and steaming hot peasant pottage. She orders that every man be allowed a starchy pastry filled with fried onion and potato, but very little meat. When these arrangements are met, she glides into the candlelit hall and beside her faux father. She looks demurely at the waxed oak floor as Littlefinger describes her upbringing in a septahouse, her devotion to the seven, but more importantly, his pride to host the order for fair work.

She looks up and sees around fifteen men, ranging from small to large and young to old. All look healthy to work and pleased by the fire, promises of food and work. She welcomes them with a modest little smile and asks after their journey.

All through she can feel Petyr's stare in her back, like a performer tumbling on a tightrope, never falling.

"Is this all of you?" she asks.

"There is but one more of us, he is putting the horses to stable. He has taken a vow of silence and wears his hood and facial wrappings. But do not mind him. He is a gravedigger, fit for manual labour, strong as an ox," replies the representative member of the order, the only one who speaks.

She hears a soft shuffling nose behind her, and turns. There is a buzzing swell in her breast, for her breath falls short, and she turns around to see the limping brother entering the hall. Noises faltered and fell away from her, as if a pair of bear fur ear-muffs had been clamped over her ears.

She knows him before she sees his face, knows that when the hood is castoff and the scarf discarded, the face underneath will be dark, strong and stern, his nose hooked, and his brow heavy. He would be long past youth, but far from great age.

When his eyes meet hers, his steel gaze is harsh, but never cruel.

He knows her.


	2. Flight

_**ii. Flight**_

He avoids her like greyscale.

First, she thinks he is being discreet, that he plays the game like her. The moment she saw him she thought that soon she would receive some kind of message indicating an illicit rendezvous. A number of days fly by, Sweetrobin occupying the day, and Littlefinger far too deep into her nights. Her anticipation slowly dims, and her hope dies.

Even in the tiny garrison, he seems to disappear into ether. The sheer number of people residing in the fortress eased his efforts. So many of the Lords Declarant had swarmed to Littlefinger's makeshift court in the wake of the successful tourney. Littlefinger's wealth and generosity had accumulated abundant food to feed the Vale through the hard winter.

She had conversed with the speaking representative of the religious order the Hound now belonged to. The Elder brother had informed her that they were from a colony on the Quiet Isle. The winter and subsequent starvation had caused them to seek shelter and work. Sansa knew that this meant that news had spread of Littlefinger feeding the Vale, and sending aid to the commons.

Though the Lords Declarant despaired of Littlefinger, the commons loved him. He was often regarded as the only good thing Lady Lysa had ever done for the Vale. The Elder Brother had informed her that the commons called him "Lord Bread". Should a coup be attempted, a peasant's revolt seemed likely to occur.

Second, she fears that he has forgotten her. Or that her disguise and physical growth had altered her so drastically that he hadn't recognised her. Alternatively, whatever had happened in her chambers in Kings Landing had been lost in his drunkenness.

She discards that thought. She knew that he had seen her. Her eyes did not lie. She felt sure that even through the mire of drunkenness, the night of blackwater would be imprinted on her psyche, just as much as it was for her. She had felt his tears and his large body had trembled. She had tasted his lips. If he was sober enough to leave Kings Landing alive, he was sober to remember.

 _Anyhow. The Hound can sniffs out liars like he can sniff out wineskins of Dornish Sour. The Gates of the Moon must reek with my stench, liar that I am now._

Third. She fears that he cannot possibly be the Hound.

 _The hound would never flee from me._

But it becomes more and more blatant. If she enters a room, he leaves. He is hardly present at dinners, but when she does spy him, he takes his rations quickly and stomps off to eat in private. He can hardly eat without removing his scarf, and if he were to do that, his identity would be compromised. Still if he came close to her contact in a corridor he flinched away.

She couldn't make head nor tail of his behaviour.

* * *

It was not until she cornered him in the Sept that she finally has the chance to talk to him. She had absconded from Littlefinger's solar and chosen to prostate herself before the maiden. Her prayers to the Maiden were to still Littlefinger advances and dampen his libido, although the deity proved largely ineffective.

She entered the sept quietly, slipping through the double doors. The doors were most ostentatious, and her favourite feature of the sept. The panels were made of the dark pine that grew on the slopes of the Giant's Lance, varnished until shiny. The door was plain but for the two large moons, embedded mother of pearl. When the mother of pearl shimmered in the torchlight, all the colours of the rainbow glinted. The sept itself was small and pokey, but had characteristic sculptures and smelt heavily of incense.

The Father had a great big bushy beard, and the Mother massive teats. The Maiden had an extremely sly, Randa Royce-like look on her face, whilst the Stranger was so swathed in fabrics it looked like it was a blob, rather than a representation of death. The warrior was supposed to look stern and vicious, but the sculptor had only achieved making him look constipated. The representation of the Crone was extremely hag-like, unlike the grandmotherly figure most Septs procured. The Smith was the only competently carved, and Sansa couldn't critique the depiction.

He is knelt in front of the candle-lit hag, his wide back hunched and drooping as if he were wearily carrying a great burden on his shoulders. She watches him then, for a little moment that grows into a large moment. He sways a little, favours a side because of the injury that makes him limp. His breath is the loudest thing she has ever heard. It echoes around and around her head whilst she tries to think what magical combination of words she can utter. Witty remarks. Japes. Silly little chirpings.

All fell short.

She says nothing and walks the three, four steps to collapse next to him. Her footsteps echo and her knees thud when she collapses next to him.

He started, broken out of his reverie, and made to bolt from her yet again.

"Please," she whined. "Don't go. Not now. Not again." He voice sounded wrong. It sounded scratchy and desperate and terribly, terribly bastard Alayne.

He stilled in his motion, but his shoulders were rounded. He looked around then too, as if he were checking that he wasn't cornered, but his movements were almost purposefully slow. His gaze was focused on her then, and she was caught in his vehement glare. It made her feel cold and naked, and terribly ashamed of her bastard garb and dyed hair.

She faltered. She clasped her hands and unclasped them. Her mouth opened and closed.

His countenance was as cold and icy as the Wall. Impenetrable.

Her anxiety bubbled inside her, and before she knew it she was hiccupping with nervous laughter. She tried to calm herself and fall back into regimented discipline, but the giggles erupted until they lapsed into tittering and she could cover her mouth with her hands.

She wished she could smother herself then, for he remained silent as the grave.

 _He must think me mad as a bat._

Finally she composed herself into silence, and attempted to drink him in like he did her, to meet his gaze without being the one to flinch away.

"Every night since, I have regretted not leaving with you," she whispered in her broken bastard voice. "I'm leaving this cage. Can you slip your leash?"

Again she started tittering at her stupid jape and hated herself for it instantly, but the words slipped out of her like eels, writhing.

"The scales are weighed against me. This is a mummer's farce. I cannot take control of this situation. This game cannot be won by me. The only means of survival without significant loss is to remove myself from the board. All they want me for is my claim."

She shook then, much like Sweetrobin's fitting, and began to weep. The nervousness and scare of the situation had settled deep into her bones. "You promised me."

He started and shook his head violently, causing her to jump. He had been as still as a statue and it made her jump with fright.

Tears were streaming down her face now, and in the most un-ladylike manner, snot was dripping down into her mouth. She could taste the mucus mixing with salt. She snorted and began to wipe her face with her hands. "You promised me you would keep me safe. You did. You did! How could you forget?"

Then his large hand was at her face. He used the cuff of his rough woollen cowl to dab at her face. When the tears were wiped from her eyes, she appraised his hand. It was marred with many little white scars, like the work of an eclectic spider. He mopped at her mouth and pinched the snot from her nose with surprising gentility for a man of his size.

Then the fear of incorrect identification seized her heart again. What if this was but an innocent member of the faith, a terribly confused brown brother? What if the brown brother told the representative and the representative told Littlefinger to curry favour? What would happen to her then?

She cupped his covered face like she had before, the scrape of fabric heavy against her palm. His taut exhale and inhale could he felt through the thin fabric. She moved her hand upward, and allowed her fingertips a faery-touch trace of his brow. He recoiled again. Delicately, like collaring a scared dog, she hooked her index finger under his scarf and pulled it down.

It fell down lopsided, caught on his right ear. On his left hand side, there was only a stump, and the scarf met no resistance. His face was naked to her.

 _So dark._

 _So stern._

 _So Strong._

 _But so terrible._

The mists of time had altered her perception of his face. She had made him more handsome in her dreamings, given him a noble face. It was a cruel reminder. The left side of his face looked like rotten meat, fissured and oozing, blackened leather in some places, mottled with red and pink craters in others. There was no pattern to this fissured motley. The disfigurement extended from his neck to scalp. A white hint of his mandible could be seen projecting from his face. Before his hair had been worn long, swept to the side to conceal as much as possible. Now his hair was tightly drawn back, and he was exposed.

He had closed his eyes tight, pensive.

"Look at me," she commanded.

His breath hitched, and he obeyed.

She met his gaze and with shaking hand traced her thumb down his hooked nose. She dipped her little finger into the bowl of his philtrum, strong on one side, barely determinable on the other. She traced his lips and pressed on the twitching corner. He mimicked her then, reaching the corner of her mouth with a gentle thumb, resting on the corner.

 _He knows as much of I as I do him_ she realised, flicking her eyes downwards to his heavy thumb. He immediately moved. Some unknown instinct made her quicker. She opened her mouth and caught his thumb between her teeth, meeting his gaze as she closed her lips and suckled. She could taste the salt of her tears upon him.

He made a noise that sounded like hissing. The expression on his face slackened. His eyes darkened and his irises grew large.

Her tongue met him then, covering the pad of his thumb and tracing the blunted edge of his nail.

He whipped his hand out, quick as if he had been bunt.

"The fuck," he snarled, his voice deeper and hoarser than she remembered, like steel meeting stone. His face twisted from stupefaction to anger in an instant.

She felt brazen and wanton, but she didn't feel shame, nor did she avert her eyes like a modest maid. She felt bastard brave and wolf blooded. The wolf blood was hot, and heavy. It made her heart beat fast and her face grow red. She felt drunk on lust, swollen and engorged, her tummy tight and heavy.

He owes her a debt, a kiss debt, a lover's kiss debt.

She stakes her claim.

She kisses him with the ferocity he afforded her at the Blackwater Battle, opening her mouth on first contact, working the corner of his mouth that twitched. Though it looked unpleasant, the odd texture of the ruined lip was almost like the peel of a citrus fruit, his taste not foul.

 _Why is it that the most beautiful things are a veneer to rottenness whilst the ugliest ruin proves sweet? I know that my kiss will not make him handsome._

He drew back and made eye contact yet again. His face was tumult with fleeting expressions. Anger. Confusion. Rage. Revolt. Revulsion. Lust. Another strange noise emitted from him, a kind of cry that sounded quashed, strangled. Almost like he was choking back tears.

 _I don't want him handsome._

He grabbed her wrists hard then, his grip was iron. She was yanked against his chest and his mouth covered hers, tongue probing and pushing in. She rolled her own in response against his, wrestling in the only way she thought she might conquer him. She tasted the edges of his teeth, the roof of his palate, his moans in her mouth. Then his grip tightened harder again, and the intimacy ended abruptly with a shove.

A string of saliva hung glinting silver in the candle-light before snapping between them. He wiped the slobber from around his mouth with the cuff of his robe. All the while he watched her like a threat.

His anger sparked again.

"Look at you now," his voice was cruel, maybe crueller than she had ever heard it. "Look at you. Lady Lannister, and Littlefinger's most prized whore. You've fallen low. Mean to control me too with your cunt?"

His spittle sprayed her, and she baulked. For a moment, she was the scared little girl caught in the middle of a siege.

 _Oh Gods._

 _Oh Gods._

 _He has never kissed me._

His face was ugly and unreadable.

 _I fabricated it. I was a little girl trying to make sense of big adult emotions. I stitched and wove this little lie because it was prettier than real life. That night was terrifying. He was terrifying._

 _But I still imagined a stolen kiss._

She could hear the grinding of the teeth she had licked but a moment ago.

 _I told myself I kissed him because I wanted to be kissed by him. Now I have stolen that._

She read his expression clear as day then, and read it as humiliation. He began to howl again. "What have you done? What have you done? You play a foolish farce with me, girl. I will not allow this—"

"Your determination to see yourself so miserable is most commendable," she snarled like a shadowcat, silencing him with severity. "To see a man such as you so unhinged by a mere kiss. S-so determined to make everything perverse and ill. You've shamed me." She wobbled to her feet and in anger swiped at the candle he had lit for the Crone, sending it to clatter on the floor.

"You whore and consort with the man who arranged your Father's execution and yo—"

"W-what? What?" Her heart stopped and she could feel her face fall into shock. Even he, full of anger and vitriol could see the shock spreading across her face. "Little bird—"he began, humiliation falling into humility.

"What?" she screeched over him, her stomach turning with mint-sweeted bile. She wanted to retch and felt faint with horror.

"Little bird," he repeated, with forced softness, but she could no longer stand the scent and claustrophobia of the sept, or the man in front of her, and the mixture of sensations he aroused in her.

But she had had enough of him. "I am no bird; no cage ensnares me. I am a free human being with independent will, which I now exert to leave you," she spat and fumed.

She left the Sept, face reddened by the brutality of her raw anger and the sting of rejection. When she was little, she had always supposed that her beauty would ensure her happiness; that rejection was only for people who were plain or ugly like Arya. People who were beautiful were happy. They led better lives. She had thought that she was protected from the indignities that others had to endure.

But life was not a song.

And Littlefinger had omitted some very important facts from her. His omission was enough proof of complicity and guilt. He loved to gloat to her of his victories. Her anger was bubbling up and she felt like she were to explode there and then.

She realised then that she had forgotten to attend Sweetrobin, and needed to ensure that he fell asleep.

She uttered a foul string of curses under her breath.

She imagined a door, Strong oak. Iron nails. She imprisoned the second son of House Clegane behind it like she had so many other things, and barred it shut until she had the privacy to think.

Then she slipped Alayne on like a well-worn stocking and came to Sweetrobin's suite of rooms, finding the child ill-settled and disgruntled. His lateness distressed him greatly, acting this naughtiness with a certain brand of spoiled childish petulance. She read him three different stories and still he refused to slumber.

 _Never have I wanted to cane a child more than I have tonight._

Making her excuses, (and wishing to remove herself from the room as soon as possible) she made to find Maester Coleman, who could always be found close to Sweetrobin's quarters. He was quickly found.

"Maester Coleman, Sweetrobin refuses to sleep. Could he have more sweetsleep to ease his slumber?"

Maester Coleman, a man of little stature, chin and far too much neck looked as sternly as he could at her. He looked so much like a chicken it would have been laughable any other night.

"I daren't give him anymore my lady, he's had more than enough this week. It lingers in the flesh. Better that he has a break for this moment."

A bell rang in her ear, the kind of warning bell used for alerting castles and town of fire within the walls.

"Is sweetsleep dangerous? I thought it a natural remedy?"

"Sweetsleep is natural my lady, just are digitalis and nightshade. Both will kill quickly. Too much and the lungs, they flood." Maester Coleman shook his head sadly. "A pity we are so reliant on it at all."

The room span and there was a moment where black dots danced on her vision. She had always presumed that Sweetrobin's death would be natural, a result of ill health. He was a sickly child.

 _And how his passing could be quickened with so much ease._

She made her leave to Maester Coleman, informing him that she did not have knowledge, and that she would keep all requests to a minimum. On returning to the child he asked her for the sweetmilk, but instead she hugged him with a deep guilt burning in her bosom.

"I've decided that the milk will not be decided. I was wrong to be late and my mind has been detached recently. Let us share lots of tales and stories and the bed too." She kissed the top of his head and ruffled his hair like she would Rickon's.

She told her stories and even sang. She listened to his confessions. She didn't rebuke his claims of people wanting him dead. It felt wrong to deny him his worries, especially if they proved to be true.

She allowed the child to borrow into her bosom, although she sternly told him not to try to suckle. Spoilt child though he was, he did not deserve death any more than Rickon or Bran. When he was asleep, she pretended that he were Arya. When she were little, the sisters would share a bed, until the fighting between them grew. In the dark, she could pretend that Sweetrobin's long hair was Arya's. She imagined Arya squirming if she told her that she had kissed the hound that she had fantasised until she had convinced herself real. And then she had made it real! She imagined that Arya would laugh and giggle knowing that the Hound had hardly known how to respond.

She wondered what Arya would have done had she found herself so ensnared by Littlefinger.

Sleep takes her.

She sits with Lady under the Oak tree on top of the hillock in the autumn coloured meadow.

Her Lady's eyes are dull with grief.

"Where do I go from here?" she asked the wolf.

Lady looked out to the horizon, and Sansa followed her gaze. Then the environment altered and shifted until she was flying high. She viewed the land like viewing a map, mountains turning to rivers. After meeting towns and villages she met a great castle, bigger and grander than Winterfell. She blinked and it was burnt, the towers black with soot and melted.

She turned from the awful sight and turned south over a lake so vast, it almost appeared a sea. Mists appeared on the horizon. Before she knew it, she was zooming through those claustrophobic mists, drenching her feathers so wet it became harder and harder to fly.

Land was spied ahead of her, a thin strip of island, covered with luscious greenery. She entered the canopy and flitted from branch to branch. The forest made no sense. Pines, sycamore, Hemlock, ash, beech. Oak, cedar, chestnut and cypress. Too much variation, incorrect species for the Riverlands.

She came down to the ground then. Every single tree had a face. Some were quiet, some angry. There were faces that scared Sansa and some that made her laugh, the faces were so jovial. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the red leaves of a weirwood.

She turned to look at the weirwood's face. It was strong and stern, dark and terrible. His eyes were closed, at rest, and weirwood sap glistened where the burns were. He looked like he was sleeping, peaceful, happy even, or as happy as he could actually be.

"There? The isle of faces?" she whispered, returning to the tree with a sickening jolt and turning to her wolf. Where Lady had sat there was only snow, and Sansa was alone.

Winter had come, bittercold and the golden field was now white. The oak tree was dead behind her. She was naked. Her moonblood was upon her, streaming down her thighs.

When she stood up, the imprint of her buttocks were marked with blood. She walked down to the meadow, trying her best to cover her nakedness and shame, shivering with cold.

She saw her father then, carrying his tarred head in his hands. Robb was there too, arrows embedded in his torso. He too carried his head. Greywind's took occupancy where his should have been, attached by poor stitches. Her mother stood there too, river bloated with her throat slit.

"Come to me," she whispered in a voice that squelched. "And I will give you your inheritance, your crown."

The voice froze her more than the biting cold. Sansa saw the foul creature's eyes and knew that the abominable being inside her mother's shell was not the woman she had loved. She walked past her, bracing herself for the burnt bodies of her younger brothers. But they did not appear to her. Instead she saw another body appear from the mists. It was her bastard brother Jon. His tunic was slashed to ribbons, many times, and blood was everywhere, on his torso, his hands, and around his mouth. "Mutiny," he gasped. "Mutiny."

She awoke to the scramblings of Sweetrobin. He was attempting to open her ties and free her breasts. She pushed him away.

"What did I say Sweetrobin?" she lectured.

"I'm the Lord of the Vale, and I can do what I want." The child replied with characteristic peevishness.

She fixed her eyes on him with a maester's sternness. "You are the Lord of the Vale, it's true. You're also a very naughty little boy."

For a moment the boy seemed to want to rebuke her, but to her surprise he looked very guilty. "I'm sorry Alayne. I know you don't like it. I just miss mother. I know you are not her but I like to pretend that you are. So she feels close to me." He whimpered, a sad little noise.

Sansa sighed. "Oh Robin." She brushed the hair out of his eyes with a tenderness she had forgotten that she had possessed.

 _If I can ensure this child to grow into a man, old enough and wise enough to rule, he could be my greatest ally._

"Don't do it again, or I'll be less inclined to share your bed again, or read you stories. I need respect in order to love in return. That goes for your Lady wife come the future too. "

"Mother didn't put a price on her love" the spoilt child was there again.

"You were but a babe. There are rules to everything in this world. Would you have done something to sadden her, so make her upset or comfortable?"

He shook his head.

"You cannot force someone's affection no more than you can make Alyssa's tears flow upwards, Lord or no."

She kissed his forehead and held him tight. "Robin?"

"Yes Alayne?"

"Us two, you and I. We're in the centre of a vortex. I've told you about them before yes? Dafyd the Tideknight fighting the Karken? He beached it in the centre of a vortex?"

"That's a Riverlands tale. I prefer the Winged Knight."

"You do remember it then. Remember how I told you that around them, the whirlpool shifted? That the water would have been calamitous? But in the centre Dafyd was safe, on the riverbed, but he had to keep on moving so he wouldn't be caught into the whirlpool's currents."

He nodded vigorously.

"You and I, we've been in this safe centre for some time now. We've been kept safe but the vortex will eventually pick us up. We can't fight it, how times change. There will be chaos. Loss. Many things will occur. You won't always feel safe or loved. But I want you to know something. I will protect you. I'll anchor you down as much as I can. I can't promise you safety or happiness. But I'll try my best to look after you. You won't understand what I am doing, but I promise you, do not doubt me. You are my kin. I will not suffer another loss from my blood."

The child trembled and for a moment she was worried that she had induced a fit in him. "Alayne, you're scaring me."

"Better I tell you the truth. Would you prefer that I lie to you and leave you for lost?"

"No."

"Good." She extended her little finger towards him. "Promise me you will not tell Lord Petyr that I have said this speech to you. He keeps secrets from us both."

He swore.

"Promise to me that you will not tell any other person, living or dead. This is between you and me, no others"

He swore. "Lord Baelish scares me. I don't much remember mine, but I suspect that he wasn't like that at all."

"No. I always heard that Lord Arryn was a good man. Loyal and clever. But I suspect that Lord Baelish isn't like that at all. In fact, I suspect that that he is a very, very bad man."

"Do you wish that I could make him fly? I could do that for you Alayne, I would." His eagerness to please was almost adorable, like a little puppy.

"Right now, you can't. You won't Robin. The repercussions would be too much right now. It would hurt us both, pull us into the whirlpool and drown us. But I plan to make it so that you can. When Lord Royce calls for his execution that will be the right time to move against him. It'll be a message from me."

"You won't be here to tell me yourself?"

"A man has to grow into being a man. I cannot whisper into your ear and tell you what to do. You will be your own Lord, your own ruler. Fear not, I will return and visit you."

He measured her words carefully. "How will you prosper without your Father? Kinslaying is abhorred by the Seven. Isn't that bad, Alayne?"

She held him tighter. "I'm not a bastard at all. I'm certainly not Lord Baelish's. I'm a princess he has kidnapped and imprisoned as his daughter. I'm your cousin, Sansa Stark. And you, Robin? You will free us both."

He gasped and looked at her in amazement.

She had just made her first play.

* * *

She begins to prepare for her flight from the Gates.

She engages Harry more eagerly, to Littlefinger's distain. Together they ride though the snowy pine forests of the Giant's Lance. She learns to love the thrill of the ride and improves her seat in the saddle. She informs him how masculine and attractive his hunting skills are, and makes certain that he teaches her his boyish skills. She almost feels Tyrell as she gets him to teach her how to make snares, going into great detail over tying knots. Even the brush of her hands against his is enough to have him smirking and his ears to turn bright red.

He tells her that she is unlike any other, silly, prissy girl he has ever known before. Together they make little shelters and clamber in together. He tells her all his tales about surviving in the colds. She praises him for his bravado, and lets him kiss her, and fondle her breasts. He always expresses that she allow him further. She charms him with her excitement for their wedding night. She can hardly wait, she says. But she will not shift on the fact that he will take her as his wife, not his betrothed.

Still, he teaches her how to relieve his aching loins with her hands.

All considered, whilst Septa Mordane would be less than impressed, the price of her survival lessons is less than a few jerks of a cupped hand. There was no shame for her. Really, that fault should have been placed on Harry, foolish and reckless, lead by his manhood.

She doesn't deny that the thrill of the exchange, the excitement of a man wanting her so.

However, she highly doubted that she would miss him, come her escape.

* * *

She shares Randa's bed as often as possible. She tells Randa that she is plagued with doubts and concerns. Whenever Randa probes deeper, she bursts into heavy, fat, liar's tears.

* * *

Whenever possible she talks to her fellow Stone, Mya. She informs Mya that her stress increases, that the gates of the moon feel like they are collapsing upon her. She professes to the girl that she fears marriage and begs her to keep it a secret. After a sennight of twitching on Littlefinger's lap, waiting for his mention of insubordination, but never once hearing as much as a hint, she decides the girl trustworthy.

She discusses the thought of fleeing to re-join a motherhouse. Perhaps even entering the Silent Sisters. Mya gives her best council on the roads in the Vale, how to best avoid the mountain clans and keeping herself safe. The kind girl even provides Sansa a dirk for protection and recommends one of her own mules, teaching her how to saddle and care for an animal traveling over rough terrain.

But in hindsight, and the questions she asks, she makes it blatant to the clever mule-header that Alayne is not telling her everything. Some of the questions that she asks could even be interpreted as her plotting to smuggle Sweetrobin away.

* * *

Littlefinger loves to give her rich fabrics, to her dress in his colours, his wealth. She informs him that she means to begin constructing her trousseau. She requests white.

* * *

She has always been a fussy eater. It is easy for her to discern to perishables from the foods that will not keep. She begins to smuggle such food away from the dinner table and builds a food store in one of the smaller storerooms.

* * *

And she avoids him greyscale. He stalks her and she cannot avoid his presence. Now she has to ensure that she never attends the Sept without another person, that she always has another person by her side, even be it a maid or servant. She even has to alter her routine to attempt to lose him.

It's not enough. All it takes is for her to enter an empty corridor to be swept off her feet and thrown into a storeroom before she can scream.

"Shut up," he snarls, quickly checking the corridor before slamming the door shut.

He pulls the scarf off and steals close to her. "Whatever you've built me up to be, not me. Not who I am. "

He pulled a long, pained face. "If you mean to control me with your puss, attempt to try and seduce me, consider it excess to requirement. You've been around Littlefinger too much. Penetrated you in more than one way." He looked her up and down. "More than the three obvious ways anyhow."

Sansa gasped at such crudeness and began to protest, but the Hound waved his hand to dismiss her, like some kind of servant. "Don't go lying to me. You'd be absolutely addled either way. Now this plan of yours? Escaping this cage? Tell me. I'll get you out of here."

She supposed this was the closest she would get to an apology and swallowed his indignities. She told him of her preparations and plan. She had chosen the next full moon to flee. She told him where her food store was and which mule was hers to take. She told him that she wanted to head towards Harrenhall, and which mountain clans were active in the areas she wished to traverse. Upon finishing he whistled lowly. "You've grown into a talented creature."

He asked her practical questions, mostly upon the rotations of the guards, and what procedures were to be taken if guards were sick.

"Do you wish to induce a food poisoning?" she asked.

"Depends, all it takes is for a stock pot to be kept too cool for too long. Easy enough. Got anything better in your arsenal?"

He meant to jest, but she didn't wish to lie to him. "I still have the Strangler's poison used to murder Joffrey. I've enough to kill half of the Reach." She thought a bit longer. "I could steal sweetsleep. I don't know how much there is and how much needed to kill though."

He blinked slowly. "A fey creature," he murmured, an odd look spreading on his face. "You mean to kill Littlefinger with it? Or am I to do that?"

"It's part of Littlefinger's fall. He's my kill. I-I didn't know. I didn't know his involvement with Father's failed coup." She looked at him with a strength then. "He's taught me so many things. He wanted me so badly as a lover and accomplice. All these falsehoods spun into favourable yarns. I'm going to twist his falsehoods into his noose."

Her mouth was hurting, she hadn't smiled with such abandon for a long, long time. She thought then of the smile he had worn during the riots, of the similarities hidden between them.

The hound looked nonplussed. "Well that's great kid. Easy to say this kind of shit. Will it kill him, yes or no?"

"If it doesn't it'll be impressed," she shrugged, "It'll leave him maimed enough it'll be hard to retaliate against me. But my dragons are on his death. I would do it myself. But I can't afford to get the blood on my hands now. It'll affect allegiances to come. I can't afford that, not with regicide on my head too."

He nodded. "A plotting fey creature. Not quite a little bird anymore."

"If I'm ever safe again, I'll be a little bird and a good person again. But I can't be. Not now." She could see a strand of her dull hair fallen in front of her eye. You've changed too, hypocrite."

It was true. He was quieter, more prone to thinking first. There was less rage there, more a thinking mind than before.

He nodded tersely "Until the full moon, then." and moved off, leaving Sansa alone in the storeroom as if the conversation had never occurred.

* * *

She thinks herself very clever, sneaking to the rookery whilst Maester Coleman is occupied with Sweetrobin. She releases the ravens carrying her letters all up to the Eyrie, knowing full well that a raven who is not received by a maester will return. The short distance of the Eyrie and the absence of food up there will result in the birds returning shortly after her escape. With luck, Littlefinger's garrison will be looking for her and he will be left with little defence for the contents of her letters.

It's unlikely that they will be intercepted, especially as so many ravens come and go from the Gates of the Moon, with so many of the Lords Paramount in attendance. Her letters will mix with the others.

She thinks it rather fitting that whilst a group of crows is called a murder, a gathering of ravens is deemed a conspiracy.

* * *

To Lord Royce she gives a full confession. Her identity. Her aunt's Murder. Littlefinger's blackmail. His plots and plans. Her unknowing involvement in the murder of King Joffrey. Amongst the truths she plants a lie, and tells him that he has hired a group of sellswords to murder smallholdings and keep the smallfolk scared and subservient to him. They have the helm that once belonged to the Hound, and burnt Saltpans. One less town to feed through the winter. She pleads forgiveness and begs him to take care of Sweetrobin. She begs him, in a scared maid's hand, to kill Littlefinger.

To Lady Waynewood she omits her identity, and leaves the letter unsigned. She does tell her that Littlefinger has borrowed all the money that he has given her. When the bravossi debt collectors come, she needs to be aware of the interest he has accrued. The message is clear. Littlefinger is no friend of the Waynewoods. He has conned them.

To Lyn Corbrey she takes a more jeering tone, telling him that Littlefinger will feed him lies and arbor gold, but to make the most of the real gold whilst it lasts. She advises him that the tide is turning, and that the Vale is going to be thrown into chaos. Then she takes a more serious tone, suggesting he make the most of the chaos quickly. Accidents happen in chaos and people don't notice like they should.

To Harry she says that she flees knowing that Littlefinger wishes her to bed him, and then plans to murder him and Sweetrobin once the heir of the Vale is planted in her womb. A strangler seed is included in his letter as proof, and she tells him where the rest of the strangler stash can be found. She also tells him her identity. She informs him that their marriage may yet be an alliance. She signs off with a kiss. A day may yet come where Sweetrobin dies despite her ministrations and Harry's army and food stores may be of use to her.

To Mya she tells her to keep Sweetrobin safe, and to flee with him if he is in danger.

To Randa she tells her to stay safe, apologises to her for her falsehoods, and to keep close to Mya. She tells her that she'll be back, and that they'll share the featherbed again.

To Lothor Brune, she wishes the best of luck, to keep alive. She tells him that it's obvious that he fancies Mya's stockings off and to go for it. The girl might not be as unwilling as he thinks.

* * *

The full moon comes and she enters Littlefinger's solar for the last time.

"Father," she coos, barring the door. "I have a query for you."

She glides over to him and takes the poisonous hairnet from her skirts, Strangler seeds glowing deep purple. "I thought it unbecoming that the betrothed to the heir of the Vale should not should not have the means to kill half of westeros hidden in her chambers."

Littlefinger laughed heartily. "Easier to keep such things hidden in plain sight. Mayhaps your hairnet will become a heirloom for generations of Hardyngs to come, sweetling."

She shook her head. "Oh, it unsettles me so Petyr. You were not there to see Joffrey die. The noise he made. It was so horrid."

"Now now," his arms wrapped around her and he nestled his nose in her hair, and kissed the tip of her ear.

He is far too close to her now, but she forces herself to relax and lean into him, to brush her lips against his neck, before drawing back. She smiles a sweet little smile and places the hairnet on the desk. "I'll leave it with you here."

Then she paused and whispered in a conspiratorial manner. "I'll place it in a drawer actually." She turned and placed it in the top right drawer of the writing desk. "It's a little bit out of place here Petyr. I doubt you'll look half as good in it as I."

He laughed with joviality. She turned and kissed him, more forward and hard than she had ever done before, opening his lips with hers.

 _Never again._

She draws back and it is all over, and she jumps away, twirling like a good little maiden. "Now that was a goodbye kiss," The smile she beams at him is the most genuine one she has ever given him. "Sleep well Petyr. Tomorrow brings a new day."

The taste of victory is tempered with mint-sweetness.

She attends Sweetrobin, tells him that she loves him and that soon he will not have to worry about Lord Baelish. She tells him that Lord Royce will look after him and teach him to be a great man. He begs her not to leave him and her heart breaks.

She kisses him hairline to chin, promising him that she will return and that it is good fine to be scared for it is the only time a person can be brave.

She is concerned that he might raise the alarm with his protestations, so she feeds him the first amount of sweetsleep he has had in weeks, a tiny dose, but enough for him to sleep long into the morning. She is moved to sadness she didn't know she had. Her letter to him is short, and sweet. She tells him that she loves him, and that he too can be as brave as the winged knight.

When she leaves his quarters, her eyes are red with tears.

She attends her bedchambers, but not her bed. She changes her clothes into those she has prepared, white from head to toe. She leaves her room and leaves the Gates of the Moon without any incident.

He has dealt injury to any obstacles that may come in their way.

He awaits her, hardly visible, garbed too from head to toe in white.

Together they disappear into the snow.


End file.
